


Grounded

by DegenerateBible



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 08:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1143928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DegenerateBible/pseuds/DegenerateBible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows what Huang would do. Even if the doctor doesn’t know himself. Knows Huang wouldn’t hesitate to deck him. Knows they’re both trying to simultaneously abide by traditional male ideals and rebuke them with each kiss in the dark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grounded

.  
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He exits the interrogation room and can feel the detectives’ independent stares. They don’t ask if he’s okay. There’s something about his eyes. Bright and alert in the murky light. There’s something in them not exactly wild. His fingers card through the slick strands tousled across his forehead. He just needs to get to the bathroom. Needs to see how bad the bruises will be in the morning. He sees Barba, perched in a corner instead of center stage in front of the smudged one-way glass. Face slack and eyes unreadable. Barba just stands there.

Huang makes his exit. Light bounces off chipped, plastered walls no longer an innocent white. The hallway seems endless. He doesn’t miss the hurried footsteps behind him, making a symphony with him own. Doesn’t miss his name rolling off an irate tongue. Or the hands that suddenly grab at his shoulders, halting his steps, and pushing him into something solid.

He tenses, back arching reflexively off the slightly uneven wall. Barba’s in front of him, chest heaving.

Huang stares resolutely at the strong neck. Barely making out the network of veins bulging with rage, pounding with adrenaline, branching off like tributaries across the tanned throat. He knows what’s coming. Can feel the air shift and clot.

“What the fuck was that?” Said with an icy acidity, an ice block to his chest. Huang winces. Doesn’t meet his eyes. Warm breath floats over his cool cheek and all is still.

And suddenly he’s back in that room. All concrete walls and small windows.

...

_“Are you a good boy doctor?” The words unfurl off a large tongue. Voice baritone and rich. It hasn’t faltered yet._

_Huang’s expression doesn’t change. He doesn’t look away from the one-way glass. It isn’t worth it._

_“I’d like to think I am.”_

_“I’m sure you are.” And he doesn’t miss the leer, the suggestive upturn of thin lips. Those ice black eyes that seem endless. The fists balling on the tabletop._

_..._

“I mean…Jesus George,” Barba continues in a raspy whisper. The sentence dies, breaks off, chocking on rage. His fist balls and he wonders what he would do if he...

He knows what Huang would do. Even if the doctor doesn’t know himself. Knows Huang wouldn’t hesitate to deck him. Knows they’re both trying to simultaneously abide by traditional male ideals and rebuke them with each kiss in the dark.

...

_“You say my type as if we’re so different,” Huang says, sees the fists tightened ever so slightly, hardens his voice. “But we’re the same if we’re playing by your rules. You’re weak and you know you are. Then you realize you’re gay and suddenly all those names those bigger boys called you in the locker room come flooding back. And that’s what made you the angriest. Isn’t it? So you killed men that reminded you of yourself. But it didn’t help. Did it? Tell me, what does a grown man do with a little boy’s rage?”_

...

The fist uncurls.

Careful fingers leave his cheek. Travel down to his neck. Ghost over the irritated flesh in tight, redundant circles. Another measured exhale. The fingers stop.

“Why?” Dark eyes search. “You knew he would attack you. You knew he could’ve…” Another dead-end observation. Barba’s mind jumps to half-empty beds. No more vegetarian shit in the fridge.

“I had to,” Huang says, voice tired and determined. “It was the only way to get his confession. We exploit weakness all the time. I don’t see why you have a problem.”

Barba chuckles cruelly, the sound like gravel. “You honestly don’t see why I have a problem with my lover whoring himself out to a serial killer for his confession?”

Huang looks up at him, eyes confused. But he’s smiling. Barba can’t tell if it’s mirthless. “I am not yours,” he says. Then laughs, loud and abrupt.

“I don’t belong to anyone. And being together doesn’t give you the right to claim ownership over me or my decisions. I’m my own person with my own independent identity. I’m not your—“

Lips cut off his rant, chapped and claustrophobic. He’s backed against the wall again, getting plaster in his hair. A bruising kiss to his lips. He doesn’t know why he’s succumbing to this. This visceral display. Desperation in the form of lip, teeth, and tongue. This sheer sign of ownership in a dim hallway in the early hours of the morning. Hands find his hips, lust guiding calloused fingers.

He’s breathless and shuddering when Barba releases his lips. His own hands have found the other man’s shoulders. Push him away or pull him closer? He can’t decide. His brain is shooting out too many possibilities.

“Tell me you’re not mine.”

“Rafael…”

The attorney’s eyes are glossy in the light. His voice: serious and wispy. He kisses behind his neck, nibbles. Hands find Huang’s waist, thumbs rub in insistent circles.

“No. Tell me. Tell me that we don’t belong to each other. Tell me I don’t know you. Your mind. Your body.” Huang shivers, feels the slice of a grin against his ear. Tries to deny what he’s hearing. Knows it’s true though and hides his face in the attorney’s neck.

“George.” His voice is softer now, hushed. The intimate space is hot with their combined, hurried breaths. Barba whispers lushly. “Are you telling me you didn’t become mine the moment when we made love or fucked or whatever you want to call it? When I trusted you and you trusted me, with everything? When you took off your clothes for me and let me see every inch of you?”

He kisses his forehead, his cheek. A loose whine meets his ear. He shudders and whispers raggedly, “God, you make the most beautiful noises.”

“Rafael!” Huang begs. He doesn’t want to believe the truth of it all. The fact that he, without prior knowledge, had given himself away so completely and got another soul in return. A soul who could reduce him to base sexual needs with a few kisses and well-placed hands. But he has the power to destroy this man. This man with his sharp smiles and even sharper tongue could be reduced to a weeping shell by him and only him. He knows this. He’s seen it.

But he doesn’t want it. The power. The fragile soul in his clammy palms or the eyes he’s somehow managed to avoid in their close proximity. It’s too much. But he knows to deny it would also be belittling what they’ve spent so long trying to build. This careful breathing thing built upon open, often drunken conversations, angry fucks in court bathroom stalls when they have conflicting opinions, and one too many “not guilty” verdicts.

He also can’t deny this man knows him. His favorite novels. Where he likes to be touched. He also can’t deny how he can’t breathe with his hands on his body and the bright eyes searing into his forehead.

“I think…” Huang says and meets his eyes. “I mean if you’re mine. I could….be yours?” he says. His voice treads upon a line he’s been too afraid to cross.

And he doesn’t realize they’re kissing. Because it seems as though they’ve always been breathing the same air. Always been that close, that in sync.

“Doc we—,” Olivia says, seemingly from nowhere but actually down the hall. Her voice stops when she sees them.

And when Huang breaks the kiss and turns to look at her, he takes her breath away. Skin flushed. Lips swollen. Hair mussed. Expression one of innocence. He looks raw and pure. Like something just hatched.

He looks vulnerable, she realizes. Vulnerable and open in a way she doesn’t think most have seen him and probably never will. She finds something dangerously close to attraction inflaming her cheeks when he self-consciously licks his lips.

“Yes detective?” Barba does not look innocent. If anything, there is a fierce protectiveness in his eyes, something almost primitive, instinctual.

“We…uh,” she falters, if only for a moment. “We just wanted to see if the doc was okay.”

“I’m okay Olivia,” Huang says and yawns, leans into Barba’s chest before he can stop himself. “Thank you for your concern though.” Barba knows he’s tired now. It took him many months to realize that the doctor doesn’t simply understand killers, doesn’t simply empathize with them. He falls into them, their fractured psyches and ragged, savage fantasies with the same willingness he does everything else.

“We should be thanking you for the confession. We couldn’t have done it without you.” She walks quickly down the hall with rigid steps. No doubt she’ll tell the others what she’s seen and Barba chuckles at the mere thought.

“It’s not funny,” Huang says, because he knows his thoughts but there’s no heat. He’s tired now and doesn’t protest when the other man pulls him from the wall and more securely into him. He feels strangely weightless and subconscious, like he’s already asleep.

And he almost thinks it’s all a dream and it’ll be a cruel joke when he wakes up until Barba says, “Let’s go home,” in that voice that grounds him like nothing else.  
.  
.  
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End file.
